A camel is an even-toed ungulate in the genus Camelus that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. Camels have long been domesticated and, as livestock, they provide food and textiles. Camels are working animals especially suited to their desert habitat and are a vital means of transport for passengers and cargo. There are three surviving species of camel. The one-humped dromedary makes up 94% of the world's camel population, and the two-humped Bactrian camel makes up 6%. The wild Bactrian camel is a distinct species that is not ancestral to the domestic Bactrian camel, and is now critically endangered, with fewer than 1,000 individuals.
Kerr County is a county located on the Edwards Plateau in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 52,598. Its county seat is Kerrville. The county was named by Joshua D. Brown for his fellow Kentucky native, James Kerr, a congressman of the Republic of Texas. The Kerrville, TX Micropolitan Statistical Area includes all of Kerr County.
The Drum Barracks, also known as Camp Drum and the Drum Barracks Civil War Museum, is the last remaining original American Civil War era military facility in the Los Angeles area. Located in the Wilmington, Los Angeles, California, United States, near the Port of Los Angeles, it has been designated as a California Historic Landmark, a Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Since 1987, it has been operated as a Civil War museum that is open to the public.
Fort Verde State Historic Park in the town of Camp Verde, Arizona is a small park that attempts to preserve parts of the Apache Wars-era fort as it appeared in the 1880s. The park was established in 1970 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places a year later.
Edward Fitzgerald Beale was a national figure in the 19th-century United States. He was a naval officer, military general, explorer, frontiersman, Indian affairs superintendent, California rancher, diplomat, and friend of Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill Cody and Ulysses S. Grant. He fought in the Mexican–American War, emerging as a hero of the Battle of San Pasqual in 1846. He achieved national fame in 1848 in carrying to the east the first gold samples from California, contributing to the gold rush.
The United States Camel Corps was a mid-19th-century experiment by the United States Army in using camels as pack animals in the Southwestern United States. Although the camels proved to be hardy and well suited to travel through the region, the Army declined to adopt them for military use. The Civil War interfered with the experiment, which was eventually abandoned; the animals were sold at auction.
Hi Jolly or Hadji Ali, also known as Philip Tedro, was an Ottoman subject of Syrian and Greek parentage, and in 1856 became one of the first camel drivers ever hired by the US Army to lead the camel driver experiment in the Southwest.
Fort Tejon in California is a former United States Army outpost which was intermittently active from June 24, 1854, until September 11, 1864. It is located in the Grapevine Canyon between the San Emigdio Mountains and Tehachapi Mountains. It is in the area of Tejon Pass along Interstate 5 in Kern County, California, the main route through the mountain ranges separating the Central Valley from the Los Angeles Basin and Southern California. The fort's location protected the San Joaquin Valley from the south and west.
The Department of the Pacific or Pacific Department was a major command (Department) of the United States Army from 1853 to 1858. It replaced the Pacific Division, and was itself replaced by the Department of California and the Department of Oregon.
Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery is a United States National Cemetery in San Antonio, Texas. Administered by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, it encompasses 154.7 acres (62.6 ha), and as of 2014, had over 144,000 interments. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.
Yiorgos Caralambo also called Greek George and George Allen was an alleged murderer and camel driver hired by U.S. Army in 1856 for the Camel Corps experiment in the Southwest. The camels were to be tested for use in transportation across the "Great American Desert."
Fort Inge was a frontier fort in Uvalde County, Texas, United States.
The Fort McKavett State Historic Site is a former United States Army installation located in Menard County, Texas. The fort was first established in 1852 as part of a line of forts in Texas intended to protect migrants traveling to California. The fort was deemed unnecessary and abandoned in 1859 and was occupied by settlers. From 1861 to 1863, during the American Civil War, the fort became an outpost of Confederate forces on the Texas frontier until they left for other theaters of the war. When the US Army returned to Texas in the later 1860s, the fort was reoccupied and rebuilt, and became a base for the "Buffalo Soldier", or all-African American, 24th Infantry and 9th Cavalry Regiments.
Fort Lancaster is a former United States Army installation located near Sheffield, Texas. The fort was established in 1855 on the San Antonio–El Paso Road to protect migrants moving toward California through Texas. The US Army occupied Fort Lancaster until Texas seceded from the United States in March 1861 and were replaced at the fort by forces loyal to the Confederate States of America. The Confederate Army held the fort from November 1861 until April 1862, when it was again abandoned and then burned.
San Pedro Springs Park is located in the Bexar County city of San Antonio in the U.S. state of Texas. Surrounding the source of the springs, the 46-acre park is the oldest in the state of Texas. It is the location of a Payaya Indian village known as Yanaguana, and is the original site of the city of San Antonio. The park is alternately known as San Pedro Park. The park was designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1965. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places listings in Bexar County, Texas on November 1, 1979.
The Sebastian Indian Reservation (1853-1864), more commonly known as the Tejon Indian Reservation, was formerly at the southwestern corner of the San Joaquin Valley in the Tehachapi Mountains, in southern central California.
Camp Verde is an unincorporated community in Kerr County, Texas, United States. The town is approximately the halfway point between Bandera and Kerrville along SH 173 in the Texas Hill Country.
The Hi Jolly Monument is a grave site in the Hi Jolly Cemetery located at Quartzsite, Arizona, United States, marking the grave of Hi Jolly, a Syrian-born camel driver brought to the United States in 1856 to drive camels for the US Cavalry. The site is located halfway between Phoenix, Arizona, and Los Angeles, California. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.
Beale's Cut Stagecoach Pass is a stagecoach pass built in 1859 in what is now Santa Clarita, California. The Pass was designated a California Historical Landmark on May 11, 1992. The cut provided a route in the pass between the San Gabriel Mountains and the Santa Susana Mountains ranges. It is located near the current interchange of the Interstate 5 and California State Route 14.
Peter Lebeck was an early settler of Kern County, California. The only certain information known about him is that he was killed by a bear, probably a California grizzly, and buried underneath a valley oak in 1837. The tree he was buried under is known as the Peter Lebeck Oak. He is attested only by his grave marker, now at Fort Tejon, but the unknown circumstances of his identity and death have cemented his position in the culture of the San Joaquin Valley. He represents the earliest known victim of a bear attack in California.
